Fake photos. What's to lose?

A very clever friend of mine has figured out how to make super realistic looking headshots with AI. And she offered to share with other business owners exactly how she did it.

The response was HUGE!

‘Yes please!’ they screamed into her Instagram DMs.

And, of course. How absolutely amazing that female business owners now have access to a tool that can help them elevate their brand and grow their business.

It’s an expensive (and painful! - at least for me) exercise. A stylist, clothes, hair and makeup, a professional photographer, a day off ‘real work’ - the costs really add up.

And now - AI can do it all for you. So easy and super accessible.

Good headshots and professional branded photos are a necessity for many business owners and you can now make it happen in just a few minutes.

And… so what?

As I sat with all this I wasn’t thinking about the impact on those who would see these images. Most of what we’ll see on social media will not be real in a short amount of time - I thought about the loss for the business owner.

I thought back to the very first professional photo shoot I had for my first proper website. It was a huge investment, I shopped at cheap stores for clothes and sent friends photos of potential outfits from the change rooms for their approval. (It helps to have VERY honest friends!)

I had a huge fight with my husband the morning of the shoot (the whole family was involved in this so we did it on a weekend when he’d be home). I was coming up against all my insecurities, I was wondering who I even was to be doing this and didn’t feel thrilled about planting my face all over a website. Gross.

Visibility is a tricky thing.

And I was right amongst it all.

Of course he was the easiest person to take it out on. #soz

I wrote a two page letter about all the reasons why this shoot was a bad idea and I had probably wasted money that we could have used to go on a family holiday.

Oh the drama was REAL!

And it didn’t end. After getting the images back from the very talented photographer I realised I hated every single one, expect maybe two pics. I was horrified at what I looked like. I cried for hours. What a waste of money.

I was talked off the ledge by my husband and my beautiful friend Ellissa from Flourish Online who has always done my branding. Maybe they weren’t so bad…

I share this with you because the discomfort, the cringe, the fear - it all grew me. Hugely.

Every single time I did a shoot (there’s been a few since that first one in 2015) - it forged me a little more into the person I am today. The person who was forced to look at and accept her face and its imperfections. The person who built a business taking photos of herself in bed, at the heater in ugg boots (anyone remember the covid posts at the heater?), on holidays with wild hair and no makeup at the beach, sometimes after crying.

It’s never been fun to throw images of myself out there. But it’s been real and honest and I think that matters. Well, it’s mattered to me to attempt to represent the truest version of me at a moment in time.

I’ve grown because of it.

I stayed visible through grief, through breakups, through pandemics, through boredom, when I was tired, when I was over-stimulated. And I think I could because through those photos shoots, through those tough and uncomfortable moments of visibility I learnt to accept and embrace my imperfect self.

We need to do hard things. We need discomfort. If everything is too easy, how will we grow?

Listen, I genuinely love that these AI tools are making business success possible for more women - I want us visible and successful - but I’m definitely glad that I had to do the hard and slightly traumatising photo shoots of the ‘old days’. I don’t think I’d be the same person without them. (Also - I don’t think brand photography is dead - I think it is absolutely still a thing that many people will do - and then, like so much of AI right now - you take what you have and leverage the shit out of it with AI.)

Yes to more women having access to business growth tools!

And also - gee this is strange. You know?

Listen to the Episode here, or on your podcast app of choice.